Nationalism has marked the democratic transition of many post-communist societies, including Croatia. It showed its liberal character by fostering democratic change and achieving national independence, but it also manifested itself as exclusive ethnocentrism, which considerably slowed down the democratization process and imposed itself as its main characteristic. The author challenges the view that ethnocentrism as inherent characteristic of the so-called Eastern (ethnic) nations, which are consequently undemocratic and prone to ethnic conflicts, while the liberal character is attributed as inherent to nationalism of Western (civic) nations. Besides the explanation of various aspects of nationalism in Croatia, the author draws attention to its primary structural and contextual conditionality, particularly highlighting the framework of political unfreedom and limited modernization during the communist period and specific conditions of democratic transition characterized by process of nation-state establishment and the war of independence. Here nationalism appears as an expression of patriotism and political identification, but also as a response to social, political and value discontinuity and particularly as reaction to external aggression. The author denies its inherency, since it is not some “innate” cultural trait, but a social phenomenon that is dominantly caused by the social and political context. Nationalism in the period of democratic transition in Croatia, despite its undoubtedly ethnocentric manifestations, in essence still was liberal. After the war and renewed processes of democratization there was a significant decline of ethnocentrism and strengthening of liberal features of nationalism.keywords: nationalismethnocentrismdemocratic transitionnation-statepost-communist societiesCroatia

Genocide is a complicated social, political and psychological phenomenon. Findings by a number of scholars show that all types of genocides are interdependent and cannot appear in pure types alone. This paper argues that the loser psychology is one major factor for developing a genocidal intent in society. Society, facing harsh realities, feels defeated and abandoned by international community and begins to look for ways out of psychological morass. Extremist passions and movements become prevalent in such societies which finally take people to insane beliefs which are based on the need to take revenge on others, to prove their superiority, to the illusion that they have found the solution for their problems: to kill others, to eliminate them from society. The paper also shows that the ultimate end of such a genocidal intent is the achievement of happiness. The capacity of society to provide its members with their wants (security, food, psychological recovery, etc) will make them happy, the failure to do so will spread gloomy environment over society. People’s desire to recover from major loses and immediately achieve happiness confuses them and leads them to false calculations, which, unfortunately, easily nest in the minds of members of society, sparking an “us-them” split the in society, which would take them to genocidal intentions.keywords: genocideloser psychologyhappinessinternational
community

The Euro-Atlantic community faces new challenges - at a time when the US is increasingly turning its focus towards Asia-Pacific, European countries will have to take much more responsibility in ensuring European security. As the shift in defense policy of the United States would have impact on transatlantic and Euro-Atlantic relations, and even lead to a “repositioning” of the United States within NATO, the question remains how the European NATO allies would adapt to these new circumstances. NATO and the EU must create a common platform to exploit comparative advantages in supporting international peace and security. Conclusions of the Summit of NATO in Chicago, primarily linking the concept of “smart defense” and the concept of “pooling and sharing” have created conditions for improvements. Enhanced cooperation in both models would allow European countries not only to exercise greater influence within NATO and the EU, but also to achieve effects that outreach their individual achievements. Despite the ability of some countries to initiate joint operations in times of economic crisis, member states’ geopolitical interests will continue to complicate achieving consensus on modalities for strengthening the effectiveness of the common defense and creation of common facilities. Both organizations will primarily have to invest more efforts in identifying - and eventually removing - unwanted overlapping activities. This is a challenge whose outcome is very difficult to predict.keywords: regional securityNATOsmart defenseEuropean Unionpooling and sharing

This paper is an analytical synopsis of Ahmet Davutoğlu’s pro-civilizational activism, an essay on this globally recognized diplomat and expert in the field of international relations, history of political thought and political philosophy. Davutoğlu is an author of the strategic doctrine of new Turkey as global actor with neo-Ottomanist Geist. It shows his multidimensional approach to civilizations and their world views (Weltanschauung), to their truth perceptions and cultural other/otherness, as well as his diplomatic discourse that generates security, peace and democracy that made him one of the main initiators of the Alliance of Civilizations in an era of Huntingtonian macro-conflictualism as new global disorder. This article focuses on non-rational differentiation in the West and the rest in the era of post-modern “international sprint”, when the world is transformed into a global village and when the only solution is in finding common values, a social philosophy that ties different culturological perspectives. In this context, Davutoğlu’s geopolitical doctrine is based on principles of security for all, dialogue, economic (inter)dependence and cultural coexistence and pluralism, which can especially help the Balkans area to avoid being a field of post-Ottoman historical tragedies.keywords: global politicscivilizationsdialogueneo-Ottomanisminterdependence

This paper explores the process of transmitting war experiences from parents to children in the contemporary Bosnian context. It is informed by studies in psychoanalysis and cultural anthropology. Using in-depth interviews with families, family trees and children’s drawings, I try to understand why and how parents communicate their traumatic memories to their children, and how children respond to their parents’ recollection of the recent past. In brief, I argue that parents avoid the topic of the war and this avoidance derives from the ambiguity of their experiences in war. Second, their reluctance to talk about a certain part of their life results in fragmentation of history and consequently in a fragmented sense of selfhood and belonging in their children. Fragmentation is also reflected in the fact that the war narratives are gender dependent which means that women’s stories of the war differ from those of their husbands. In most cases, men have difficulties in sharing their war experience with their children for three main reasons. First, they are not able to arrive at a clear-cut narrative on their own participation in the warfare. Second, they seem to lack the language to describe an experience which is felt to be unique and sometimes surreal. Finally, their narrative does not always overlap with the official state-recognized version of history.keywords: war traumatrauma transmissionpaternal functionBosnia and Herzegovina

In this book Gergana Noutcheva aims to increase knowledge on the impact of EU policy in its neighboring countries. The author is an associate professor in International Relations and European Foreign Policy at the University of Maastricht. Her research focuses on the EU enlargement and neighborhood policy, in particular the impact of the EU on the domestic structures of non-EU countries.